MamaViews: Brooke from Inchmark

Todays MamaView comes from Brooke at Inchmark.  I've gotten so many great ideas from her site; the advent calendar mentioned below was already on my list of things to make this year for Christmas!  I love the approachable, warm feeling of her blog, you always feel like you've just popped in to visit a friend when you read her posts.  Today she shares some thoughts about the creative process, family traditions and balance.

Working for Martha Stewart you must have been exposed to myriad types of crafts.  It seems you're still constantly creating and trying new things.  As you've dabbled in so many different media and been exposed to various ways of creating, what have you learned about yourself as a crafter and creator?

While working on the Living and Kids magazines I learned not be afraid of failure. The cookies sometimes burn, the pinata falls apart, the paint color sometimes looks terrible once it's up on the wall... the ideas you have don't always work out quite the way you think they will. It happens to everyone. But some of the most beautiful moments on photo shoots are when things don't work out as planned, so you just try something else and eventually something even more beautiful is born. You just keep trying. I remind myself of this all the time. So you sewed the sleeve on upside down? No big deal. Just pull out your stitches and try again. Don't get bogged down in your failures.

Every family has it's own unique culture.  What traditions and family culture do you cultivate with your children?

I grew up in a family of six children and my parents made sure we had a lot of fun together. I'm trying to foster that same kind of feeling in my family.. we work together, but we also laugh together, and we try to have a lot of fun together.
I have a great love for traditions, and I have carried on many of the traditions of my parents like using an advent calendar to count down the days before Christmas or going to visit the cabin.  But I
think it's important to start your own traditions as well, things that are unique to just your little family, isn't that part of the fun of being a parent?

How do you balance working at home and being a full-time mom?  Do you clearly delineate your two roles or do you find they overlap, merge and blend throughout the day?

I try to delineate my roles as much as I can. I have always made sure I have a few hours a week when I have the house to myself and can really focus on work (usually I've done this by paying a close friend to watch the kids on a set schedule, say every Monday from 9 to 2). This year my oldest entered kindergarten, and my youngest is in preschool two mornings a week so I have some days when I can take conference calls from New York and really concentrate for a few hours.
I try to be very aware of how much work I am putting on my plate. For the past year I took a break from doing book design, because I had done three books back to back and was really feeling the stress of the deadlines. I turn things down a lot, even though they sound like wonderful projects, because I just can't work 60 hour weeks like I did before I had kids. I choose not to.


To me you seem like a progressive pioneer do you think so too?  In what way?

I just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods to my children and have been thinking about the beautiful way the Ingalls family lived. I love how they had to work together in order to get the harvest done or to prepare the house for winter, even the littlest ones had important jobs. I love how their routine changed according to the seasons and how their greatest joy was listening to Pa play his fiddle at night.
We don't live in a little log cabin in the country (though I'm not ruling out the possibility someday!). We barely even have seasons here in Southern California. But I think I can still teach my family how to live simply. I am trying to instill in my children a love of nature. A love of simple food. An appreciation for every gift (remember how excited little Laura Ingalls was at Christmas when she received one simple rag doll?) A love of hard work. A love of family (we recently moved from New York City to raise our children near my parents and my brother and his family). And something my parents always prayed for with their children.. a love of learning. I don't think your circumstances matter as much as what you decide to value in your own home.

Given a day to do anything you please, what would you do?

I guess I would do what I do everyday: Wake up to hear my children laughing together. Kiss my husband. Do a little work. Watch my kids learn something new. Go for a walk on the beach with the whole family. Read for a few minutes. Have dinner together around our dining room table. Find time to make something. Spend a little time with my husband before we go to bed and start all over again.

Brooke, thanks so much for sharing.  I loved your thoughts on choices, simplicity and making conscious decisions about what to value in your family.  Keep in touch!